Fasteners, solders and adhesives have been used to attach components to primary hardware and structures to establish an electrical connection therebetween. For example, integrated circuit (IC) chips are typically soldered to motherboards. However, solders are subject to problems such as cracking which may cause a circuit board to malfunction or to fail. Furthermore, solders conventionally include lead, which may be undesirable in some applications. Adhesives used to connect a component to a primary hardware often require a long cure time. Further, adhesives often employ undesirable solvents for attachment. Moreover, once the component is attached to a structure using solder or adhesive, the component may not be repositioned without damaging the component and/or the structure.
Other options include coating the surface of mechanical interconnects with an electrically conductive material. Several of the known mechanical interconnect systems include hook and loop fasteners available under the trademark Velcro® from Velcro USA, Inc., Manchester, N.H. and reclosable fasteners available under the trademark 3M™ Dual Lok™ from 3M, St. Paul, Minneapolis. However, such mechanical fasteners suffer from disadvantages such as unpredictable contact area, which may prove detrimental to consistent high electrical conductivity, and insufficient locking strength. These fasteners are also subject to frictional locking which may deform the fasteners upon multiple engagement/disengagement cycles. Such fasteners provide rather limited holding force that rapidly decreases with repeated cycles of engagement and disengagement. Alternatives are, therefore, desirable.